


Under the Open Sky

by gaygreekgladiator (ama)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Spartacus Series (TV)
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/M, M/M, Multi, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:13:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/gaygreekgladiator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the War of Five Kings breaks out, a Baratheon bastard leaves King's Landing for the Dothraki Sea, where he meets a khal and absolutely does not fall completely in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ours is the Fury

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by exergasia, who wanted "an ASoIaF AU where Agron is a sekrit Baratheon bastard dicking around in King’s Landing and when the war starts he’s like fuck y’all and this popsicle stand and goes off to travel the earth and become a sellsword. And then he meets Dothraki prince Nasir, who is amazing and full of swag and Agron is totally not head-over-heels with him, shh no what are you talking about. So instead of professing his love he goes, welp guess I’ll enter your service now, what do you say. And Nasir just smiles a wicked little smile, but secretly he’s all, oh yeah you’ll enter my service alright." I did my best to deliver.

“No fucking way.”

“Agron, I _need_ you,” Renly said impatiently. “Stark won’t budge, the Lannisters have the whole of Casterly Rock behind them, and who knows how many of my bannermen will support Stannis over me. I need your help, brother.”

“You need my swords,” Agron countered. “Close the door.”

Renly slammed the door to Agron’s chambers shut behind him. There was a flagon of Arbor red on a nearby table, and Agron took a large swig. His eldest brother was dead. His youngest brother had his eyes on the throne. And the other one hadn’t been heard from in months. Gods, he needed more fucking wine. Renly snatched the flagon and took a gulp, too.

“Fine, I need your swords. I can raise the nobles, but you are the only man in the city who can raise the lowborn, the hedge knights, the sellswords to fight. Am I a poor brother for relying on that talent? But it’s not just the men I need; I need you, too. I have no bloody idea how to fight a war. You do.”

“I’m not fighting this fucking war,” Agron protested.

The worst thing was that there _was_ some truth to his words. Renly was lord of Storm’s End; he could make his living off the land itself, and be contented with studying only the books of law, as a member of Robert’s council, and the books that he hid on the lower shelves when Stannis visited, which Agron had given him as a lark on his fifteenth birthday, which they both pretended had never really been opened.

Agron’s life was different, of course, and he and Renly were close enough in temperament to be in near-constant contact. Renly knew that Agron had been keeping himself busy in King’s Landing by doing occasional work at a nearby blacksmith (though he did _not_ know, and _would_ not know, that Agron’s primary purpose in doing so was to keep a look out for a fellow Baratheon bastard) and hiring out as a fencing instructor for those families who were not rich enough, or prestigious enough, to engage a knight. And, of course, no instructor worth his pay could hope to do so without studying swordplay and warfare extensively.

Renly was wrong, though, in assuming that Agron would eagerly apply that knowledge to his cause.

“Why not?”

_Because I want you to live, you selfish fool._

“Because it’s insane. Because Westeros will fall into ruin. Because I don’t think you’ll win, with or without me. Because I don’t want to risk my life so you can admire the way you look in a crown.”

Renly glared at him.

“That’s not all I want, and you know it.”

“It’s what all of you want, isn’t it?”

“Fine. Yes, I want to be king. But there’s going to be a war even without my involvement; Stannis has been plotting one for months, and Stark supports him. If you fight for me, we can at least ensure that, at the end of it, the people of Westeros will have a king who will help them repair what’s left, rather than punish them for asking, or leave them to aid themselves.”

“I will not fight for you,” Agron said simply.

Renly stood there silently. He looked out of place in Agron’s sparse rooms, in his emerald-and-mahogany hunting clothes—though those were stained in Robert’s blood. Cersei had objected to Agron receiving rooms in King’s Landing, so the rooms were as cheap and bare as they could be without actually being dungeons. In fact, Agron rarely inhabited them; he preferred taverns and brothels, personally, and Renly usually visited him there.

Of course, there was a time when there had been no need for avoidance, awkwardness, or distance between them. Things had seemed so much simpler at Storm’s End, even when the rest of the world had abandoned them. Stannis had never liked Agron, but he had never sent him away, either, so Agron took it upon himself to serve the trueborn Baratheon boys; he would be a kind of heroic bastard, he thought, like Ser Jostin Stone, Hand of King Rogaer.

They were all younger and more innocent in those days. Aside from losing the dogs, the war had barely touched them. While Robert played at being king, Renly played at being a wizard, Duro a dragon-tamer, and Agron a soldier. Stannis never played at all.

 _When did it change?_ Agron thought absently as he watched Renly’s eyes flicker between hurt and defiance. But it was no use asking. He knew the answer.

He turned from his brother and surveyed the room. There was very little he needed to take with him. Sword, knives, leather armor, a helm and unmarked clothes. And silver, yes, lots of silver. Robert had never begrudged him _that_ , no matter Cersei’s objections—what were a few silver stars, when the throne was busy with golden dragons? It would weigh Agron down, but he dared not change it to gold on unsafe roads. He would sew the silver into the lining of his clothes and saddle once he was free of King’s Landing.

“You would have fought for Duro,” Renly said as Agron pulled on a fresh shirt and began to gather his things.

“Maybe. But if Duro were here to declare, I would not be the man I am, and neither would you, so the argument is moot. Stop drinking my wine.”

“This is Robert’s wine.”

“Stop drinking the wine I stole from Robert. I have no idea how long it’ll be before I find a decent red again.”

He finished packing and slung the bag over his shoulder. Renly was leaning against the wall, looking despondent. It wasn’t a particularly kingly look, and his hair was stuck in his eyelashes the way it always did, especially in the wind, but he would never cut it no matter how many times Agron told him to. Renly said his only vanity was his appearance, which was much better than being vain about one’s money or power. Agron used to tell him it was a good vanity to have, since he had no money or power, to which Renly once protested, “I’m the king’s brother!”

“So am I,” Agron had retorted, hiccupping. “And that pig just vomited on my leg.”

The memory made him thirsty. He snatched the flask away and drained it. It was rich and full, and more expensive than any he would ever have purchased for himself.

“Where are you going?” Renly asked, somewhat wistfully, when he saw that Agron was finished packing.

“Not sure. I’ve had enough of these fucking games you nobles play.”

“You could have been good at them, if…”

“If I hadn’t been born a bastard?”

“If you had put any effort into it. You were always good at protecting me, at least, when I was too young to know what I was doing.”

“You’re still too young to know what you’re doing.”

Agron’s voice was stern, but there was affection in it, and Renly smiled. He clapped Agron on the shoulder, then, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled him into a tight hug. He was a bit shorter than Agron, but nearabouts as broad, and his grip was strong.

“You were always my favorite brother, you know,” he said when he pulled away. “Bizarre as it sounds.”

“You were always the brother I wanted to throttle the least,” Agron said sincerely. “If Robert lives through the night, tell him I’ve gone to split a few skulls; that’ll amuse him. If you see Stannis, tell him that I hate him and I respect him. If you see Duro… tell him I’m sorry and I miss him, but I won’t be joining him for a while, if I can help it.”

Agron was in the doorway when Renly called him back.

“And do you have any advice for me?”

“I know little about politics, but…” He stepped forward and put a hand on Renly’s shoulder, and spoke solemnly. “Make sure you fuck Loras properly before begging his father for Highgarden.”

Renly shoved his hand away. The last time Agron saw his brother, he was laughing.

\--

He bought a horse and set out from King’s Landing. Agron had never been a particularly adept rider, but the black gelding had a loping gait that was actually rather comfortable, and he made good time. When he first departed, the streets were clear and the smallfolk had no knowledge of what had befallen their king, but before the city was entire gone on the horizon, he heard the bells faintly begin to chime. Agron took a deep breath.

_My brother is dead._

Agron had never been particularly fond of Robert. A distance of some years had separated them, and in any case Robert had too many ignored bastards of his own to care for a measly half-brother. Agron had always been a bit quieter than Robert, a bit more serious, a bit less boisterous, and that had always kept them apart.

Yet Robert had never been cruel to him, either. He had never ignored him, like Stannis, or cast him out, like Cersei wished he would. At the very least, Robert deserved a moment of solemn reflection, which Agron was happy to grant, though he had not the time to properly mourn. He had two brothers buried now.

Two days later, he finally stopped at an inn. He had avoided human contact on the road, but at this distance from King’s Landing, he judged it safe. It was a small place, and relatively empty.

Agron scanned the place when he entered, looking for Lannister red cloaks, but the only occupants were a rich merchant couple, a half-dozen farmhands, and a knight with a faded blue shield who looked hopelessly drunk. Relaxing, he took a seat and gestured for the barmaid.

He was provided with a tolerable rabbit stew, accompanied by an excellent cider, and left alone. Agron found it rather odd; the stocky girl didn’t even flirt with him, which hearty barmaids tended to do, and none of the farmhands tried to make conversation, though in his experience country-bred boys were a curious bunch. Perhaps the death of a king (and had war been declared yet?) sobered them.

When Agron looked around again, though, he saw that he was being watched—by the merchant and his wife. He glanced down at himself; dressed in black leather, with a sword and knife at his belt, he presented a threatening figure. Did they fear he would rob them? For some reason, the thought amused him, and he raised his tankard in a mocking toast.

To his surprise, this action prompted the merchant to step forward, with a friendly smile on his face.

“Can you use that sword?” he asked pleasantly. Agron’s hand fell to the hilt protectively, and the man fell back a fraction of a step.

“Yes.”

“Are you a knight?”

“No.”

The man nodded in a pleased, speculative kind of way. He gestured towards his wife, and Agron’s gaze fell to her. She had dark red hair and a critical eye. Unlike most well-bred ladies—and she was clearly a well-bred lady—she didn’t drop her gaze, either at first in real modesty, or after a moment, for a show of modesty. Something in her face disturbed him, and he was sure that her husband was consulting him without her permission.

“My wife and I are travelling to Sunspear. It is a long way, and the roads are perilous—more so since the king is dead. Will you travel with us?”

 _He thinks me a sellsword_ , Agron realized. He looked down at himself again, and was forced to admit that he looked the part. He was short a few scars to be considered a true mercenary, but he was as large and as threatening to look upon as any. This had not been what he meant when he told Renly he would be smashing skulls.

He looked up at the man again, considering. Robert and Stannis had always looked down on sellswords; they offended the former’s sense of sport and the latter’s sense of honor. Renly, always the most pragmatic of the three, had found them useful, although he had a knack for earning loyalty through kindness, not coin. Still, all of them would feel only contempt for Agron, if he decided to sell his sword.

But Robert was dead, and Duro was dead, and Stannis was in self-imposed siege at Dragonstone, and gods knew where Renly was and how long he would survive. There was no one in all of Westeros left to look down on the sad life that a Baratheon by-blow had made for himself. Agron drained his cider.

“Aye. For a price.”

\--

On Batiatus’s coin, Agron travelled to Oldtown, then Sunspear. There, his employment was supposed to end, but Lucretia insisted that he accompany them across the sea to Lys. It had taken the lady many weeks to accept him, but once he stopped a Dornish madman from lopping off her head, she decided that he was irreplaceable.

Their stay in Lys was brief, though; Volantis was their true goal, and once they reached it, Agron refused to travel further. Batiatus’s business in the previous towns had been dull; talk of abstract units, of antiques, of weapons. In Volantis, his true business was revealed. They were on the docks, about to board a boat to the next city, when Agron stopped.

“I’m not fucking travelling to Slaver’s Bay. There’s a thousand sellswords in this city—find one of them.”

“I have a dragon that says you’re coming with us,” Batiatus said coldly, holding up a gold dragon. Unfortunately for him, Agron had demanded payment at each city they arrived at safely. The sight of a single dragon didn’t stir his heart.

“I’ve a sword that says otherwise,” he said. “And if I remember my history, the dragons were slain by Targaeryn swords. Mine will serve the same purpose.”

“Agron, please, listen to _sense_ ,” Lucretia said with a winning smile, laying a hand on her husband’s arm. “We know how much you’ve been paid. Even if you’ve saved every bit of copper, it’s not enough to pay your way back. How will you return to Westeros?”

“The same way I left, I suppose.”

He turned on his heel and strode away down the wide streets, eyes scanning the crowd for pickpockets and false beggars. He wanted to find work, and fast, or else depart Volantis immediately, and for that he would need every coin he could salvage. Agron did not know why, but the sight of the slaves in this city alone made him sick—he could not have born a prolonged stay in Slaver’s Bay, even if Batiatus paid him in solid gold coins the size of cart wheels.

In due course, he found a bar that was just on the right side of respectability. He paid for wine, and sat back to scan the crowd for the more wealthy patrons, who might be in need of his sword. His search was futile; every eligible man who entered already had a slave or freeman to do his bidding. Agron moved on to a brothel, two more taverns, and an inn before admitting to himself that there was no work to be found.

He could always take up some other profession. Blacksmithing, perhaps, but he was not skilled enough to be declared a master or young enough to become an apprentice. And he had not killed so many men in his travels that he was now content to lay down his sword and became a fucking farmhand. There was one other option, of course; he could join a company of sellswords. However, alliances like that tended to be either breeding grounds for discord, or a nauseating company of men who insisted on calling themselves brothers and fighting with honor and dying their facial hair, neither of which would be tolerable to Agron. He had plenty of brothers already, though they seemed to be dying at an unfortunate rate.

The next day, Agron decided to leave Volantis, though he had yet to decide on a destination. Desperately, he returned to one of the taverns he had visited the night before, which had fewer rich patrons and more seedy-looking men—men like him. He had acquired a few new scars in his months with Batiatus. He asked the bartender if he knew of a place that a man could find work, and, after glancing at Agron’s sword, the man shrugged.

“Might be you could go upriver. Between here and Qhor, the khalasars’ve been troubling the smallfolk some.”

“The what?”

“Khalasars,” the bartender repeated. “Dothraki armies, like. Devils on horseback, they are. Most folk probably wouldn’t be able to pay much, but a farmer or two might be willing to part with food and coppers in exchange for keeping their pigs safe.”

Agron cared little enough for pigs, but the promise of battle was exciting. He headed north.

\--

In each city or town he passed through, Agron asked after the Dothraki and the trouble they had been causing. The people were plenty willing to talk; he learned more about their style of battle than he could have hoped. He learned the most about their style of battle, of course, when he entered one.

It was very sudden. He was riding along the wide dirt path, when a horse appeared at the top of a nearby hill. With a whooping cry, he was set upon by a Dothraki warrior armed with a curved sword that meant to lop off his head. Swearing, he brought his sword up just in time to prevent decapitation. His horse shied away from the conflict, allowing him to strike a proper blow of his own, although the warrior managed to deflect it from causing true damage.

At first, he had only one opponent, but soon there were three, then five, as an entire raiding party appeared. Agron had no hope of evading them all, and desperation was just starting to set in when his blade struck true.

It was luck, pure luck, that he managed to kill a man. Only three of the Dothraki had engaged him at once, but those three were quite enough. His horse was cut up and frantic, and a blow to the head sent blood dripping into his own eyes, but Agron continued to fight. He could see well enough to predict oncoming blows, and for half a second he saw an opening. He lunged forward, and his sword sunk into his opponent’s stomach.

For one second, the man made eye contact with Agron as he choked on his own blood. Then he fell from his horse and died.

One of the remaining Dothraki said something in a harsh voice, presumably a curse, and Agron was fighting again, with no time to consider the circumstances. His only way of surviving was to run, but he harbored no illusions of his own skill as a rider. He could barely outrun the average man, let alone people who lived on the back of their mounts.

He had almost ( _almost_ ) resigned himself to death when a sharp voice barked a command in their tongue, and the Dothraki backed away. More appeared, and they formed a loose circle, with Agron in the center. He turned, trying to keep as many of them in view as possible, as blood dripped down his sword. The men he had killed lay at his horse’s feet.

With a rippling movement, the crowd parted. Agron turned towards the break, clutching his sword-hilt tightly; the blood made it slippery, and if he were to face a ko, he must be ready.

As the figure emerged, his breath caught. This was no ko. This was a khal.

The khal was shorter than the average Dothraki, and young, but far from frail. His hair fell down his back in a wave of black, with a braid in the center, and the chorus of bells that sang as he approached spoke to his victories. He wore a leather vest carved with symbols that Agron did not recognize, and the horsehair pants common among his warriors, though he had eschewed the thick belt. The reason for its absence was obvious; just above his stomach was a long, thin burn scar that he wore with pride.

And… he was stunning. Like all his people, he sat on a horse more gracefully than most people could stand on their own two legs, and there was power in the lean muscle of his arms and legs. His dark eyes were rimmed in khol, and the set of his lips spoke to a fierce demeanor that set Agron’s pulse racing for more than one reason.

The khal looked him up and down.

“Dismount,” he ordered in the Common Tongue, and then in three others.

Agron was so surprised that he remained perfectly still, not even lowering his sword. There was no hint of Westeroi blood in the khal’s features, nor any of the others he could see. Where had this horselord learned his language?

“Khal Nasir has made you an order,” a woman said sharply. She, too, spoke in a language he knew, and though the words were clumsier on her lips, Agron took them quite seriously. Woman or no, the curved blade in her hand looked threatening. He took a tighter grip on his own weapon.

“I take orders only from those who pay me,” he said boldly.

Nasir laughed. It was obvious that few of his warriors understood Agron’s tongue, but they laughed, too. Nasir’s horse, a magnificent bay mare, moved closer until the two riders were side by side. Agron gripped his reins tight and envied Nasir’s languid ease.

With one hand, Nasir stilled his animal. With the other, he drew a slim dirk from his best, the kind made for throwing. It was extremely well-forged, with silver inlay and lapis lazuli set in the handle, and well-cared for, too. Undoubtedly, it would also be well-wielded. The Dothraki were known to be adept in far-ranged weapons.

“You will be paid in blood, or not at all. Does that suit you, Westeroi?”

Agron shrugged and pretended to be completely unfazed by the way Nasir drew the blade lightly over his own collarbone.

“Food and drink would suit me just as well.”

“My khalasar is large and rich; that we have in abundance.”

“Then you have my sword, m’lord. And my allegiance, too.”

Nasir looked at him suspiciously.

“I’ve never seen a brave man surrender so quickly. Are you craven?”

Agron slipped down from his saddle, landing heavier than he would have liked, and knelt on one knee, like a proper knight of Westeros. Though he doubted that any true Westeroi knight had ever cocked his head mockingly and smiled at his lord while doing so.

“No, m’lord.”

Nasir looked at him once more, his cunning eyes searching Agron’s face. Then he turned sharply and trotted away.

“Pietros!” he called, barking orders as one would to a faithful dog—affectionately, and without the slightest doubt of being obeyed.

The boy who came forward was even younger than the khal. A truly awe-inspiring range of weapons hung from his belt, though he didn’t look strong or fierce enough to wield any of them. He grabbed Agron’s gelding by the muzzle and began to lead him away.

“What are you doing?” Agron demanded.

“Blood of my blood says horse a gift,” Pietros said with a shrug.

The Dothraki were horse warriors; seizing Agron’s mount as some kind of tribute did not bode well for his future among them.

“That’s _my_ horse,” he protested, trailing after the boy.

“No.” Pietros pointed. “Yours.”

Ah. He was being _given_ a horse. That was by far a more pleasant option.

A small cluster of horses lay where Pietros indicated, but the one he specified was easy to see, as it stood a foot or two in front of the others. It was magnificent—enormous, with strong hooves and powerful shoulders and a shimmering mahogany coat—but Agron’s heart sank even as he admired it. He was a poor enough rider as it was; on that thing, he would look ridiculous. And how in the seven hells was he supposed to repay a gift like that?

“Gratitude, but I have a horse already,” he said weakly. Pietros laughed.

“Free Cities horse. Better ride a goat! He is meat.”

“You eat horse?”

The boy shrugged again.

“The Great Stallion provides—travel, battle, food. Come—we see your horse, then you visit to khal.”

Obviously, Agron was expected to inspect his new mount, though he knew little enough to make a proper show. He stroked the beast’s flank, and glanced in its mouth (although he could have gotten the same information as easily by asking the horse to speak), and pronounced himself satisfied and grateful. Agron took hold of the horse’s reigns, and they set off again in the same direction that Nasir had passed earlier.

As they walked, Agron observed his surroundings. The Dothraki were camped several hundred feet from the road, far enough to prevent accidental discovery. The khalasar was large—at least, according to what he had learned in the free cities. By his quick estimate, there were at least ten thousand warriors, and more civilians were revealed once they passed the first few rows of tents.

It was late in the afternoon, and the camp was just beginning to truly settle in. Children ran about, ignoring their mothers, and fires were being lit. Several people looked at him curiously, and there was a lot of shouting, talking, and generally gossiping. Agron couldn’t understand any of it, and his thoughts turned back to wondering about Nasir’s grasp of his language. It was certainly better than that woman’s, or Pietros’s, though both were more capable in his language than Agron was in theirs.

“You speak the Common Tongue well,” he said to Pietros after a moment. “Do all Dothraki know so many tongues?”

“No; Khal Nasir only. He learns, now teaches.” The boy paused. “I… learn still. Khal Nasir explains in your words.”

The boy seemed embarrassed by his halting speech; almost immediately after, he called out to a friend in a loud, long burst of Dothraki that left no doubt of his competency in his own language. To Agron, the entire thing was incomprehensible, so he was suitably impressed.

Presently, they stopped in front of a large canvas tent. Only a single man stood guard at the entrance—albeit the most formidable man Agron had ever seen. Only the Mountain, Gregor Clegane, would rival him for height, and his hair was braided into hundreds of small plaits, each adorned with a tiny bronze bell.

Pietros greeted him warmly, but the guard refused to smile, or even lift his suspicious gaze from Agron’s face. He said something in his own tongue, curt and threatening, with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword.

“Barca says—”

“I can guess,” Agron interrupted hastily. Presumably, it involved pain, and a lot of it, if Agron posed a threat to the khal. Pietros translated his words. Barca nodded approvingly and stepped aside to allow them to enter the tent.

There sat Khal Nasir, surrounded by people that Agron took to be his kos. Two of them were women—one sat directly beside him, the other on his right side, slightly below him. It was a commander’s position, and Agron recognized her also as the woman who had reprimanded him for not dismounting quickly enough. There were two others: a short, stocky warrior who looked at Agron with supreme mistrust, and a dark-skinned man whom Agron would have taken for a Summer Islander, though he looked at home in Dothraki clothes and listened to Nasir with perfect understanding.

Pietros greeted his king and sat down beside him, mirroring the unfamiliar woman, whom Agron had originally taken for the khaleesi. She was a bodyguard then, a bloodrider. Interesting. Unlike the stocky man, she kept her attention focused entirely on her khal. When Nasir turned his attention on Agron, she did likewise. She looked at him coolly.

“You offered me allegiance,” Nasir said. “I have yet to accept it. My friends do not trust you. Neither do I, but I am willing to listen. You will tell me who you are, where you are from, and why you have come.”

“Will I?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Nasir smiled.

“Because otherwise you will not leave this tent alive.”

Agron glanced over his shoulder, saw Barca’s shadow lying in the tent flap, and decided that he probably wasn’t bluffing.

“Fine.”

“Had you heard of my khalasar before you came to the Dothraki Sea?”

“No, m’lord.”

“Well, you shall hear of them now—and, if you survive, you will tell of them to others. Legends ride among you.”

That was rather presumptuous, Agron thought. In truth, he almost laughed at the horselord’s solemn tone, though he managed to keep from smiling. One by one, Nasir began to introduce his companions.

“My bloodriders are my council. In Westeros, it is known that your kings rely on spymasters. I rely on Mira, who has never met a man she could not bed or kill.”

That was the woman who was not khaleesi. She smiled at Nasir’s description of her, but did not say anything.

“You know Pietros already; Pietros has mastered more weapons than you will ever carry. And Barca, who guards my door, who knows ways to kill a man that shocked even me, and has won every battle he commanded. They are blood of my blood, sharing my food, my drink, my tent, my people, and never failing me.”

Agron saluted them, but none of them caught the sarcasm, except perhaps the stocky warrior, who scowled. Nasir ignored him and gestured to the three who sat in front of him.

“And these are my kos, the fiercest warriors in the Dothraki Sea. Most soldiers take a bell from every man they kill; Naevia takes them only if her hand struck the death blow, and if the death blow chopped head from soldiers.”

Her bells were woven into her braids, and so numerous that they draped like beadwork over her tunic. Agron silently resolved not to irritate her, if he ended up staying with the Dothraki.

“She is my khalakka, and will be the first khaleesi to earn the title on her own merit, not her husband’s.” Then Nasir turned to the stocky warrior, who squared his shoulder and lifted his chin. He looked ridiculous, Agron thought. “No battle has begun until Crixus has begun, and no battle ended until Crixus has ended it. It is known. And finally, Oenomaus. Everything you will learn of Oenomaus, you will learn with your own senses, for he is a man of honor, and not false praise or pride.”

Oenomaus smiled and laughed lowly.

“Only you, my khal, can make a lack of praise sound like praise.”

Nasir nodded with a fond expression and faced Agron again.

“Are you suitably impressed?” he asked, with a hint of mockery.

“No. A commander is only as good as the king who commands him. Your pretty little history isn’t finished yet.”

“Speak with respect,” Crixus growled. “Khal—”

Nasir raised a hand to stop him and smiled enigmatically.

“Me? I was born a slave and will die a khal. That is all you need know of Khal Nasir.”

He said something in Dothraki, and his kos and bloodriders stood to leave—although Crixus argued for a brief moment. Pietros halted in front of Agron and held out a hand. Reluctantly, Agron handed over his sword and knife. Pietros waited. Agron feigned innocence for a moment, before surrendering the knife in his boot. He was sure that Pietros wouldn’t recognize the belt knife, but the boy smiled like a fox and waited until Agron handed that over, too.

“Is that all, or do you want my bloody teeth, too?” he grumbled.

“I take them, if they draw blood.”

He left the tent, and Nasir laughed warmly.

“Pietros is young and merciful. Some people think him incompetent because of it, but they learn otherwise. Normally, they would leave you your weapons, but normally one of them would be at my side. I rely on my friends completely, and they do not like to leave me alone.”

“That’s annoying.”

“Reassuring, I think. Some of them are willing to accept you into the khalasar, some are not. I asked them to leave us alone so we would not be interrupted, but make no mistake, Westeroi—I do not trust you. My instincts tell me that you will be useful, but should you prove otherwise, you _will_ be removed from my presence.”

“With a kind request?” Agron asked sarcastically. “They all seem such gentle, unassuming people.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Now tell me… Who are you?”

“My name is Agron.”

“Pietros tells me you have a rich man’s sword—what house do you belong to?”

“None; I am a bastard.” Nasir continued to wait for an answer, so Agron sighed. “My father was a Baratheon, and I was raised alongside the younger Baratheons. My brother Renly gave me this sword.”

“Ah.” The khal looked satisfied. “I know of the Baratheons—they rule your people. Is that why you are here? To kill the Targaryen khaleesi? She has left the Dothraki Sea. You will not find her while travelling in my khalasar.”

Frankly, Agron no longer cared if the girl was alive or dead, and he said as much. Originally, he had approved of Roger’s attempt to do away with her, but now there was only a 50-50 chance that a Baratheon held the Iron Throne, so he no longer cared for the political consequences of her continued existence.

“I don’t give a shit about the Targaeryens, or Westeros, or the House Baratheon, for that matter. I’m not interested in politics.”

“No,” Nasir said. He looked amused. “Men like you never are.”

Agron raised his eyebrows. “What are men like me usually interested in?”

Nasir shrugged.

“Blood. Power. Me.”

“You?”

The khal smiled.

“For one reason or another. I am young, yet my khalasar is young, and my kos and bloodriders are fearsome and loyal. Unlike other khals, I come from nowhere; I was not even raised in a khalasar, though I was born in one. I can speak many tongues, and in general I am more learned than most other khals. As a ruler, I am a mystery. And I am attractive, too. Is it any wonder men are drawn to me?” Nasir paused, then leaned forward. “For instance, you have wanted me ever since I drew my knife. Westeros must be a very strange place… or perhaps you are just a very strange man.”

Agron’s heart was beating unnecessarily fast. Yes, he did want Nasir, but he was unused to his emotions being easily read, or remarked upon. He forced a smile on his face.

“In ten sentences I’ve gone from predictable to strange. There’s no point in asking me questions, m’lord, if you’re going to answer them all yourself.”

Was it his imagination, or did Nasir look disappointed? In any case, he drew back and shrugged. A light clanging of bells followed the motion, and the slowly-fading sun glowed orange against his skin. Agron looked up, surprised at the brightness, and saw that at the center of the tent was a circle of open sky. Curious.

“Fine—I will ask you a question I can’t answer. Why did you come here?”

“To protect anyone with coin from raiding Dothraki,” Agron said promptly, with a grin.

“Why did you leave Westeros, I mean.”

“For work. A man offered me gold to see him and his wife safely to Volantis, so to Volantis I went. He continued on to Slaver’s Bay, and I came here.”

“That is not the reason,” Nasir said impatiently.

Agron laughed.

“There you are, answering my questions again. It’s the truth.”

“You left your home, your brothers, your friends, everything you have ever known, on behalf of someone you have never met and gold you do not need. Tell me why, or leave.”

There was something hard in his voice that made Agron uncomfortable. He shifted uneasily on the rough ground, and took a deep breath.

“Westeros is torn in war. Four kings claim sovereignty; two of them are my brothers. It would be impossible for me to bend the knee to one of them, but equally impossible to go to the others. I cast my allegiance with myself, and now with you.”

Nasir seemed to accept this response, at least.

“Was there no one in Westeros who could have kept you? You have come a long way merely to escape a brotherly rivalry.”

Agron thought of Duro. His eyes closed, to hide his pain.

“One. But he is dead and buried.”

“Ah,” Nasir said, finally satisfied. “You ran from ghosts. _That_ is a reason I can understand.” He stood, and held out his arm. Agron, standing, grasped his forearm.

“Welcome, Agron of House Baratheon, to the Dothraki.”


	2. Under the Open Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Qoy qoyim" is Dothraki for "blood of my blood"; the two are used interchangeably in this fic. Also, if you haven't seen the War of the Damned promo shots of Naevia, LOOK THEM UP, because she's so Dothraki it's not even funny.

It was surprisingly easy to settle into the Dothraki tribe. They were a versatile people, and most sent him a few curious glances, then let him alone. He had the acceptance of the khal—that was all that mattered. Of course, he couldn’t _speak_ to most of the Dothraki, which hampered their relationships a little, but Agron found that most of the kos and bloodriders spoke the common tongue, and were willing to at least try to befriend him, for their khal’s sake.

Crixus didn’t like him, and Barca didn’t speak a word of any language Agron knew; Agron spent most of his time with either Pietros, Mira, or Oenomaus. Oenomaus took pity on his riding skills. More often than not, he would fall back and attempt to teach Agron the basics of riding as a Dothraki. It was difficult. Their saddles were thinner and more flexible, which was good for people in good command of their horse and bad for novices. Under Oenomaus’s tutelage, however, he gradually improved.

With Pietros, he started to learn bits and pieces of the Dothraki tongue. It was slow going, made slower by Pietros’s rudimentary grasp of Agron’s language, but soon they were conversing with some degree of ease. Agron found that he quite liked the young bloodrider, despite their differences in temperament, and they often took meals together when Barca was busy. Either Barca still distrusted Agron, or he just had a menacing face in general—either way, Agron was uncomfortable eating with him.

His days took on a simple routine, and within only a few weeks he felt he could wake up each morning without discomfort or doubt. He was sharing a tent with the unblooded boys, yet to prove themselves in battle, which seemed unfair, but Pietros promised that it was only Nasir’s idea of a joke. Once he participated in a raid, he would be situated nearer to the higher-ups—although that must seem unfair to the Dothraki. Agron couldn’t care less. His current companions couldn’t understand a word he said, nor understand that Agron was there because he was new to the khalasar, not because he was an inferior fighter. It was irritating to be looked down upon by a gaggle of boys, the eldest of whom couldn’t be older than fifteen.

Oenomaus insisted on keeping Agron’s horse himself, until Agron was knowledgeable enough to care for the beast properly, so early in the morning he departed his tent and headed for the center of camp.

Agron had discovered that, language barrier or no, the Dothraki people were extremely familiar to him. There were constantly children and dogs underfoot, drunken men getting into fights that sometimes turned bloody, women gossiping, eunuchs and barren women tending to screaming children, food being tossed about, shrieks of laughter interrupting babbling conversation.

It was exactly like the parts of King’s Landing that he actually liked—not the area surrounding the Red Keep—or even Storm’s Landing. Renly had never been one to rebuke a serving girl or a page from laughing too loudly, and he quite liked children, as long as he had absolutely no responsibility towards them, so the Baratheon ancestral home was always more homey than most castles. The khalasar was the same, only mounted on horses.

Well… almost the same.

Agron corrected himself immediately, when he turned a corner and found Barca fucking Pietros in the middle of the path. Embarrassed, he averted his gaze, though they didn’t seem to have noticed him—and probably wouldn’t have cared, if they did. In fact, as Agron started to walk away, Crixus walked by, quite unconcerned, and smacked Barca’s ass in a friendly, joking kind of way. Barca immediately tackled him, and the two wrestled playfully while Pietros watched and laughed.

Yes, that would take some getting used to. The people in the Free Cities had all commented on the Dothraki’s bizarre sense of shame. Agron hadn’t expected it to faze him, as he spent so much time cavorting with whores and sellswords and other people a septon wouldn’t share a meal with, but he was wrong. The Dothraki sense of shame was notable in that it didn’t seem to exist.

Even in brothels in King’s Landing (which Agron frequented for the gossip, the wine, the amusing conversations he had with prostitutes, and the occasional recommendation), there was a sense of decency. There were two common rooms: one for people who wanted to watch or be watched, and one for those who wanted to drink and select a girl to take into a private room. And no respectable brothel offered men or boys; for those, one would have to go to a seedier place or one that operated with discretion and ran on Littlefinger’s coin, both of which Agron avoided on principle. He was not keen on getting a disease or being blackmailed, so he had lived his life quietly and hoped that the whores’ hunches turned out to be correct.

Sex was different to the Dothraki. No one, from the young singles who tumbled in a different bed every night to the devoted couples with half a dozen children, attempted to hide their coupling from the general public—although the devoted couples sometimes sent their children to stay elsewhere for the night.

This lack of discretion carried out in other ways, too. Arguments ended in fights more often than not, though they were not always mortal. Men and women alike chided those they believed to be weak, even if they didn’t know them. Even Nasir was sometimes greeted with an eminently respectable “qoy qoyim” from his bloodriders and then spoken to in a rude tone with a dozen curses thrown in to spice up the language. They wore less clothes than Westeroi—Agron had shucked his leather armor without much regret, and was indeed happy to shed his shirts and tunics in the hot sun. and, of course, there was the not-insignificant fact that the women of the khalasar were sometimes warriors.

“Naevia’s doing,” Mira told him later that day, after his riding lesson. She had taken it upon herself to teach him the Dothraki customs, so he would not make a fool of himself. She was still polite and distant, but a good teacher. Some of her lessons, like today’s, occasionally sounded more like gossip.

“The scar on the khal’s stomach—that wound was sustained before he joined a khalasar. Naevia remembered the eunuch’s ways of healing, and sealed it with fire. Since then, he has trusted her beyond measure. When she took up sword, he would say nothing against her. Now, any woman who meets her approval may follow her to battle, with the khal’s blessing.”

“Why is she not a bloodrider?” Agron asked. “I meant no insult,” he added quickly at her sharp look. “Only that it sounds as though she shares your loyalty to the khal, so why not your oath?”

Mira softened. She shrugged.

“Crixus.”

Agron’s eyes drifted over to the ko. He couldn’t understand why anyone would turn down prestige for an oaf like that. Barca had refused to learn the Common Tongue, so Agron didn’t care if the bloodrider never spoke to him, but Crixus simply discarded the information. He spoke the Common Tongue, yet always spoke Dothraki when Agron was within earshot. Treacherous fuck.

But Naevia loved him.

“Bloodriders can’t marry?”

“Our loyalty is to Nasir. Our hearts and our blood, all to him.”

“Barca and Pietros…”

“Are not married,” the woman said with an arch smile. Agron persisted.

“But they are—together.”

“Yes. Khal Nasir approves; what brings his bloodriders happiness brings him happiness. They swore no oaths to each other, so he has no objection.”

“What would happen if they had to choose between each other or Nasir?”

“It wouldn’t happen,” Mira said simply. “When a khal dies, his bloodriders die. Why save one, when it ends only in more death?”

“To not be alone,” Agron suggested quietly. Mira shrugged again. The concept seemed to hold no meaning for her. Agron wondered if she was happier for it. Would he feel the same, if he stayed with the khalasar long enough?

Agron realized at that moment that he had no idea how long he intended to stay with the khalasar. All he knew, he thought as Mira rode forth to join Nasir, was that he had no intention of leaving.

\--

That day, Agron participated in his first raid. He acquitted himself well—well enough that Crixus bestowed up him a gracious nod, before giving him a bell from the pouch on his belt. Their opponents had not been Dothraki and had no bells to loot, so he had come prepared. Agron had no braid, and no intention of wearing one, but he affixed his trophy to his leather necklaces. For some reason, that immediately lost him Crixus’s respect.

Later that night, he was invited to Nasir’s tent for the evening meal. He had done so several times before, sometimes with the bloodriders and sometimes not. On this night, they were alone.

“Pietros found you a tent,” Nasir said as he entered. “Crixus says you have earned it. You may ride like an unblooded boy—or worse—but you do not fight like one.”

“Gratitude,” Agron said. “But you knew that already. You’ve already seen me fight.”

Nasir shrugged.

“Where is Pietros?” Agron said as he uncovered the clay pots before them. The food was already cooked and prepared, the mare’s milk in skins by their side. He poured that, too; once, he would have thought it a servant’s task, but apparently in Dothraki, it was common for the guest to serve the khal. If fucking Crixus could do it without a lowering of prestige, so could Agron.

“With the rest of my bloodriders, I suppose.”

“I thought bloodriders were supposed to remain at your side.”

“They do, mostly. They ride with me, sleep with me, rise with me, and yes, often take meal with me. But not tonight.”

“Why not?” Agron pressed. Nasir paused.

“Is this your question?”

Agron sighed.

“No.”

“Then I only say that I allow my friends time to themselves, for all our sakes. What is your question?”

Agron paused thoughtfully and sipped from his drink.

"Who taught you the Common Tongue?" he asked finally. Nasir smiled and waved his hand.

"Too easy. Someone who had learned it before me."

"That is no true answer," Agron protested. Nasir shrugged.

"You asked who, and I answered. If you had asked for his or her name, perhaps you would have liked the answer better, but that is no fault of mine."

This was a game they played, asking questions of each other's past. Only one question a night, on either side, was ever answered truthfully, and Nasir was especially skilled at evading proper responses.

Over time, Agro learned much about the young khal. He was clever, loyal, and perceptive. He could also be quick-tempered and vain, and he was sensitive about his height, though he pretended otherwise. Laid bare, it never seemed like enough, but he didn't think any amount of information would satisfy him.

Sometimes Agron wondered what Nasir was learning about him in turn, though he didn't always want to know the answer. He was afraid that the Dothraki thought him naïve, or inexperienced, or similarly ridiculous. His lack of communication contributed to that. And there was more.

He was attracted to Nasir. It was something he couldn’t deny, but it was something he could hide.

So he was wary around Nasir. He tried to keep himself distant while he learned more about that khal, and sometimes he received strange or dismissive looks for his odd behavior. He didn’t care. Agron was always wary around men he wanted to fuck; he had a naturally suspicious temperament, and to trust another with body and heart was contrary to that. Renly had been lucky. He had found a lover who felt the same desire for stability and secrecy, something that Agron was often jealous of. His own affairs had always been brief and usually disappointing.

Of course, there were no septons to be found in the Dothraki Sea, and no blackmailers, so his chance for love here was perhaps marginally better. Still, he hesitated. How were the khal’s lovers looked upon in his tribe? Would he be treated as Nasir’s pet? As his woman? That didn’t mean the same thing as it would in Westeros, or in other khalasars, but aside from Naevia and Mira, he had noticed that many Dothraki women were still subservient to their men. Strong men, warriors, did not like to be made weak. Even Pietros, a respected bloodrider, still looked at Barca with something akin to submissiveness, which Agron would find constricting. Or would he even last long enough to be regarded as Nasir’s anything? Love had never been an easy matter for Agron, and he had no reason to believe it would be easier this time.

He watched the khal closely during their meal; in truth, he was unable to look away. Nasir smiled at him often, and blushed, and moved to touch him—but just as often, he drew back or averted his gaze, and sometimes it was unclear if desire or embarrassment colored his cheeks.

“What was your mother’s name?” Nasir asked. It had been Mara, but Agron told him that his mother had been a silent sister who “spoke” her name through a complicated series of blinks and rude hand gestures. Nasir laughed. Then he asked how long Agron intended to stay with the khalasar.

“Oh, forever, I suppose,” Agron said casually. “Until the horses ride on the wind and the sun lights the night.”

Nasir complimented him on his elegant phrasing, then laughed at him for it, and Agron smiled awkwardly. The problem was that, while Nasir was skilled at twisting words and understanding hidden meanings, Agron had never been a very good liar.

\--

Some weeks after Agron first arrived, he was a guest at a Dothraki wedding. It was a beautiful day, bright and clear, and he was excited for it; he had never seen a Dothraki celebration before. Still, he was almost shocked to see Naevia wearing a sheer, pale blue dress instead of armor, and completely shocked to see Crixus smiling without the slightest hint of bloodlust in his face.

The wedding was especially lavish, as the bride and groom were both kos, and unlike anything he had ever seen—and, Mira was careful to inform him, unlike anything most Dothraki had ever seen, either. First of all, the bride kept one of the ceremonial gifts (the great arakh) that should have gone to her husband. Secondly, men and women both danced for the entertainment of the guests, and indeed some of the guests joined the dance. And thirdly, there was no rape.

Of course, Agron hadn’t _expected_ there to be rape as a wedding, but Mira assured him that there usually was, and it was only due to Naevia’s influence and Khal Nasir’s generosity that there was none. Gods, Agron was almost growing tired of Khal Nasir’s generosity.

“Naevia does not tolerate rape,” Mira announced as they watched the dancers. She herself had just returned from the crowd, where she had been dancing with Pietros. Barca, who had not the slightest inclination to join them, had been given the task of guarding Nasir for the day—although even he relaxed enough to smile and share a drink with the groom.

“Most women don’t,” Agron agreed.

“The women of this khalasar are freed from that fear. Khal Nasir has outlawed it. It is known.”

“That’s to his credit, I suppose. But kings everywhere have outlawed it, not that it comforts the women any.”

Mira laughed.

“No comfort to the women—but great comfort to the men. Now they can pretend that, when a dancer rejects them, they let her alone because the khal has commanded, and not because they fear Naevia. You see that person?” she said, pointing to a sulky man hovering at the edge of the crowd.

“Aye.”

“That was the last man of the khalasar to force a dancer. When Naevia found out, she cut off his cock, then prevented him from taking food until he ate it.”

Agron squirmed uncomfortably.

“Well done. But it seems… ah, a bit excessive, don’t you think? Surely the lesson would have been learnt just as easily without…”

“The dancer was a close friend of hers, from before she was raised to ko.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You are tall and tolerably-faced. You could perhaps take a dancer. That one,” she pointed, while Agron choked on his ale.

The dancer in question was slight, draped in a red veil, with large, bare breasts and a high waist. Lovely, but not…

“No, I… no.”

Mira shrugged, and offered him a sly smile that he pretended not to understand.

\--

“Apologies!”

Agron started out of his thoughts just in time to save a clay bowl from an unfortunate end.

“The fault is mine,” he apologized, pressing the bowl into the hands of the girl he had bumped into. “I was not paying attention.”

The girl thanked him, glancing at his face for half a second, and then looking again.

“You are Agron,” she said brightly.

“Yes.” Agron looked at her again, and realized with a start that she had blonde hair—a Westeroi native. She was hardly a girl, but a grown woman… and a grown woman who had just exited the khal’s tent. “Apologies—who are you?”

“My name is Chadara; I serve the khal, when not giving birth,” she said with a self-deprecating laugh, smoothing her hand over her stomach. Ah, so that was why Agron had not seen her before. “And you are the Westeros man who causes so much dissent.”

“That’s not my intention,” Agron said, amused.

“No, men never intend anything.”

She smiled at him, and was about to walk away when Agron caught her arm.

“Was it you who taught Nasir the Common Tongue?” he asked. Chadara looked confused.

“No, of course not. We always talked Valyrian, amongst ourselves. It was Spartacus.”

Agron had never heard the name before. He frowned.

“Who is Spartacus?”

\--

On some nights, Agron and Nasir ate alone, but not that night. When Agron entered the tent, he found it full of people—Nasir’s closest friends, all chatting amiably and serving each other food. They greeted him cheerfully, and he tried to respond in kind, but he felt absent-minded. Nasir noticed.

“What occupies your thoughts?” he asked in a friendly, unassuming way. Agron hesitated.

“I… I spoke with Chadara.”

Nasir sighed, and the tent fell silent. He leaned forward and poured mare’s milk for himself, then Agron.

“The girl has no sense of when to keep her mouth shut,” Barca growled. “It is known. Blood of my blood, she should not be in your presence so often.”

“Chadara has known me for years,” Nasi said, waving his hand dismissively. “It is not new, the information she holds, and I would rather have her close to me, so her guilt compels her to tell me what she has gossiped, and with whom. To save time, though, tell me—what did she tell _you_?” he asked Agron. He tried to sound nonchalant, but there was worry behind it.

“She mentioned Spartacus.”

To his surprise, Nasir chuckled to himself.

“And you don’t believe her, do you?”

“Not all of it, no.”

“Fine. Then I will tell you, with my bloodriders and my kos as witness; they all know the whole of it.

“I was a slave from birth--or at least, I was told so, and I have no memory that proves otherwise. I had a brother, but when I began to show promise, we were separated, so I had no one but my master and Chadara. My master was raising me to be his body slave; I learned to read, write, and count, and I learned to speak different forms of Valyrian, along with my own Dothraki. There were several slaves I would be replacing: his secretary, dressers, bathers, and masseurs. I was to be one slave, doing the work of eight, so they all hated me. Chadara was his bedwarmer; I could never quite replace her, so she felt no bitterness towards me. She was my first friend and ally.

“Spartacus, on the other hand, had been a slave for perhaps a year. He was originally a bastard son of Westeros--one of the northern houses, I believe, though I never learned which. He was captured and sold to the fighting pits. Oenomaus was his trainer, Barca and Crixus his brothers. When I was twelve, or thereabouts, Spartacus led a revolt of the fighters. They liberated several rich houses, including mine, but could not control the whole city. For a year, we lived in sewers, then in the abandoned outskirts of the city, by the Dothraki Sea. We travelled over the plains for months, hungry, raiding villages for food. No matter how much we worked, though, there was always a khal who defeated us. They picked us off, sold some of us back into slavery, stole our supplies. Spartacus was a good man and a good fighter, but we had few horses and few weapons.

“Finally, I got tired of losing and running. I remembered my brother’s stories of our people. I had befriended Naevia, who had lived in a khalasar for several years that she could remember, and through her met Crixus and Barca, who had been captured as adults, and remembered even better. But they trusted Spartacus’s guidance and would not leave him. So I killed him.”

That was the part of Chadara’s story that had shocked Agron, and it shocked him still, to hear the words come from Nasir’s mouth. The khal’s voice was calm, measured, but there was a hint of dark emotion in his eyes.

“Why?”

“It is the way of the Dothraki,” Naevia said quietly. “A khal is made by strength.”

Nasir laid his hand over hers, and Naevia fell silent.

“I regretted it often,” Nasir shrugged. “Spartacus was a good man, and in Westeros, he may have been a good leader, but he was no khal. He wanted to lay waste to the cities of Slaver’s Bay, while we wanted only freedom. Under my rule, a ragtag band of escaped slaves grew into a powerful khalasar. We have freed others—Pietros and Oenomaus would labor in chains, were it not for Spartacus’s death. It was unfortunate, but necessary.”

He was measuring Agron’s reaction carefully. Agron could hardly understand his own thoughts. He had seen Nasir with blood upon his hands before; half the time, he insisted on leading his kos into battle. To picture him with knife in hand and silent steps, though... that was something different. And there was the not-insubstantial fact that he had killed a man who had rescued him from slavery, who had taught him and guided him for at least a year and possibly more. That was a side of the khal that he had yet to see.

It unnerved him, definitely, but he tried not to let that show on his face. Agron had killed men before, and for worse causes than Nasir.

“If you wish to leave, you may,” Nasir said. He was striving for graciousness, but it came out cold.

“I could kill him for you,” Barca said in a low voice. Agron had thought Barca was starting to like him.

“No,” he said, hastily. “I don’t wish to leave.”

Nasir’s lips quirked in a small smile.

“Then, by all means, stay.”

They ate. At first, there was some awkwardness, but as the meal progressed, it vanished. Mira and Pietros in particular seemed relieved to have secrets revealed; the former laughed more than Agron had ever heard, though there was one silent moment when she looked away, a solemn expression on her face, and Nasir rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. Mira was older than Nasir by several years, and had chosen to remain unmarried. Agron wondered....

Nasir himself seemed almost as shy as he had been before, but even he looked pleased

“You may be nothing more than a simple fuck from across the poison sea,” Crixus said to him, interrupting his thoughts. “But you fight well, and you are not treacherous.”

“The same can be said of you,” Agron said with a grin, “as much as any shit-eating horsefuck.”

Crixus laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, so any animosity appeared to be forgiven. Agron was grateful. If this feud had lasted much longer, they would have come to blows, and while he was fairly confident he could defeat Crixus, he suspected that the combined force of Cricus and his wife would be too much.

When the meal was finally done, Chadara entered the tent, completely ignorant of the trouble her words had caused, to dispose of the empty dishes and leftover food. The kos stood to leave, and Agron joined them; immediately, furious looks were directed at him. Pietros stood hastily, and led Agron out of the tent before he could deliver his farewells.

As soon as the tent flap fell closed behind them, Naevia slapped the back of Agron’s head. He rounded on her angrily.

“What--”

“Idiot!” she hissed. “Nasir says ‘stay’ and you leave!”

“I was going to my tent.”

Naevia raised her hand to hit him again, and Agron was almost ashamed to say that he actually flinched away from a woman half his size, but Oenomaus caught her wrist and stepped forward, speaking in a soothing voice.

“Naevia means only that you do not seize opportunity when it is presented to you. The khal would not have shared his history if he did not trust you; he would not have invited you to leave if he did not like you.”

“And you trot off to your tent afterwards like a half-wit boy,” Crixus finished. “Dumbfuck,” he added for good measure.

Agron was glad to see that friendship had not softened his tongue, because that meant he felt no guilt about loosing a string of curse words and insults himself. Crixus issued a retort, and Naevia reached up to slap both of them.

“I have neither time nor patience for this childish behavior. Get back in the tent.”

“But...”

Agron was still reeling from the revelation of Nasir’s past, and now he was shaken by the realization that all of the khal’s intimate friends expected him to... initiate something. It was a harrowing enough prospect; to do it in front of all of them was overwhelming.

“Act now, or do not act at all,” Pietros said warningly, gripping Agron by the arm. Agron sighed.

“Apologies, qoy qoyim,” Pietros said respectfully as they stepped inside again. “The day’s battle has tired your bloodriders. If you permit, we will leave no guard at your door tonight. Agron has consented to join us, if we should be required to defend you; he sleeps very lightly, and would wake instantly upon attack.”

Agron slept so heavily that nothing short of a stampede would wake him, but he decided not to say anything when a warm smile spread across Nasir’s face. Barca saw it, too, and rolled his eyes, but his face had softened. Nasir voiced his approval, and Pietros sat down. With gentle hands, he directed Barca to turn around, and began to remove the bells from his many braids.

“Mira?” Nasir said. The bloodrider kneeled behind him, and was about to mimic her brother when Pietros shot Agron a look.

“I will do it,” he offered, kneeling on the ground. “Mira must tend to herself, too.”

Mira smiled at him and backed away. Nasir ducked his head, which Agron chose to interpret as permission. He lifted his hands to begin his task, and, for a brief second, indulged in the luxury of touching.

Nasir had beautiful hair. Even at night, after a day of riding and battle, there was something artful in its windblown tangles and the looping strings of dried blood. Like most Dothraki, Nasir’s hair was plaited, but in his own unique style; two small locks, shorter than the rest, were braided and bound together to form a loose crown at the back of his head. Each of these was woven with three tiny silver bells and barely even clinked in Agron’s hand when he removed them.

In the center of those two was a much longer braid, slightly thicker, that fell almost to his waist, framed on either side with a long, unbroken curtain of black. More than twenty bells, of varying sizes, shapes, and metals, were nestled in his dark hair, or dangled from the end of the braid. Agron’s fingers were clumsy as he untied the leather strap that bound the braid in place, and slowly began to slide each bead from its place, and rest it on the ground beside him. Sometimes they slipped and hit the earth with a rude jangling sound; sometimes Nasir’s hair had become so matted and tangled that some of it came away with the adornment, and Agron winced in sympathy. Slowly, his movements became surer, as one by one the bells were removed and set on the ground.

Kneeling like this, listening to Nasir’s even breathing and the soft sound of Barca and Pietros speaking to each other in the background, Agron almost forgot that each bells symbolized a dead man. It was hard to remember that Nasir was powerful, dangerous, and respected when he sat so calmly, his head bowed like a silent sister and his maiden-loose hair draped over his shoulders. Unthinkingly, Agron pulled the final bell loose and ran his fingers through Nasir’s unbound hair. He worried around tangles and combed through the small waves formed by the braid, and finally his hand rested on the small of Nasir’s back, warmed by his skin.

“Gratitude,” Nasir murmured, and Agron drew away.

The bloodriders and the khal truly had no reservations around each other. When they all shared Nasir’s tent, they slept on an enormous pile of furs and soft sheets, and the Dothraki tendency for fewer clothes extended to sleepwear; Pietros, Nasir, and Mira retained their smallclothes, but Barca had no such limitations. In addition to that, Agron learned that Dothraki women, even when they were warriors did not wear breastbands (a fact he would have been perfectly happy never to have learnt). Mira teased him, and then left so much space in between herself and Nasir, with Barca and Pietros on his other side, that Agron was forced to lie down next to him. Mira smiled, rolled over, and fell asleep.

For many long minutes, Agron lay awake, on his back, staring at the stars through the hole at the top of the tent. The stars were dazzling in the dark indigo sky. The night looked cold, but the body heat of those around him prevented any complaint, and a dozen thick furs rested near him, just in case. He dragged one over his chest, but it did not aid sleep.

When he was certain that his companions were asleep, he finally gained the courage to turn his head, only to immediately discover that he was wrong.

“Apologies,” Nasir whispered.

“No need,” Agron replied in kind. “I understand; I am the best-looking person in the room.”

Nasir smiled, though he looked slightly concerned to find Agron still awake.

“If sleep evades you, you can leave.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Most people find it unnerving, to sleep beside so many others. I do, too, sometimes. If I desire solitude, I simply eat alone, and my friends understand... or only one of them joins me. Barca and Pietros desire privacy frequently, though they are kind enough to hide it.”

“There is not much Barca is fond of hiding,” Agron said wryly. He felt compelled to add, “The company doesn’t disturb me. When my brothers were younger, we often shared a bed. Duro had nightmares, and Renly could never have enough attention or companionship.”

“How many brothers do you have?” Nasir asked. “Spartacus only ever mentioned the king.”

“Would you like this to be your true answer?” Agron said, his lips twitching into a grin. Nasir scowled.

“We are past that. I expect the truth always.”

Agron sighed and looked up at the stars.

“When I was a child, it seemed I had as many brothers as there were stars in the sky. That is always how it seems to bastards, who are always struggling to be seen. Now... I have only two. At least, I had two when I left Westeros, and both were at war. I may have none by now.”

“Will you tell me?” Nasir asked, his voice so low that Agron strained to hear it.

“It would only be fair,” Agron said with a shrug. He paused, searching for a way to start. “Robert was the oldest--eight years older than me. He was always--larger--than other men. He hunted, waged war, drank, ate, and whored his way to the throne and then the grave. His bitterness never truly overcame his generosity, but occasionally it came close. There was a woman... there were many women, in truth, but there was one he loved until the grave. Not his wife. No, his wife hated him. We think she killed him, though the official story is that a boar gouged him when he was drunk; a cousin of the queen gave him the wine skin.

“Then there was Stannis, six years older than me. He is a good man, I suppose, if ‘good’ and ‘dutiful’ are one and the same. Of all my brothers, I think he always liked me the least; Stannis doesn’t approve of bastards, you see. Hell, Stannis hardly approves of trueborn children, if they are conceived in lust and depravity. But he can be a just and sometimes even merciful lord, and no one can ever accuse him of shirking his duty.

“Then, lastly, are the twins--Renly and Duro. Renly was older by some minutes, and they were both five years younger than me. They were much alike, as children. Our father, and their mother, died when they were babes, so they both looked up to me from a young age. I loved them as any brother loves. Renly was always more... carefree, you could say. He always wanted to be liked. Good friends, good food, good wine, good clothes--that was all he ever needed. But--” he hesitated. “But when Robert died, he decided he wanted to be king. He would have made a better king than Robert; Robert only ever thought about the smallfolk when he wanted to bed a tavern wench. But...”

“You did not serve him,” Nasir supplied.

“How could I serve against Stannis? We never got along, perhaps, but it was Stannis who took me in and kept me after my father died, when many men would have forgotten me. He fed me, sheltered me, clothed me. He saw that I learned to read, write, and fight. Because of him, I had nearly all the advantages of a trueborn boy. Even a by-blow with no family honor must recognize that. And to serve Stannis, against the brother I loved the best--it was easier just to leave.”

Agron smiled suddenly, and reached out to brush his hands across Nasir’s face, where moonlight struck his cheekbones. He had never done that before, and he half-expected Nasir to pull away and chastise him, but Nasir remained still, watching him with dark, solemn eyes.

“So, instead of bending the knee to either of my brothers, I came to serve a wild Dothraki horse lord,” Agron finished, with a small laugh.

“Wild? No.”

“Yes.”

“Spirited. At one with the earth. A servant of the Great Stallion.”

“Wild.”

Nasir, laughing, hid his face in the furs, and looked up at Agron through his lashes. Agron had no idea if the effect was calculated or not, but it made his heart flutter all the same. When Nasir spoke, his voice was serious again, and soft as a summer breeze.

“And Duro?”

Agron swallowed and looked away.

“Duro was closest to me,” he said slowly. “Always. He was brash, daring, but still--gentle. I was born to be a fighter; Duro had to learn, and he learned slowly. He wanted to be a knight. He was devoted to me, determined to please me, and all I ever wanted was to protect him. I failed.”

The tent was still and silent; the deep, even breathing of those around him could have been the gentle wind. After a long moment, Nasir reached out and let three fingers rest lightly on Agron’s arm.

“The reason I went back to Slaver’s Bay, after I had my own khalasar, was to find my brother,” he said quietly. “I could not find him. Crixus found Oenomaus. Barca found Pietros. But I... For a while, I thought he had been captured in a raid by Khal Drogo. I was foolish. I lost the battle, and then... I stopped looking. I don’t know if my brother was ever with him or not. I’ve even forgotten his name.”

Emboldened, Agron cupped Nasir’s jaw in his hand, and leaned closer. He couldn’t bear to see unhappiness in the khal’s face.

“I have no doubt that you did the best you cold. The best you could is usually extraordinary; no one can fault you for being ordinary for one moment.”

“I thought you--disapproved--of what Chadara told you.”

“No. I could never disapprove of you.”

Nasir smiled. He pried Agron’s fingers away gently, and tucked them into a loose fist, smoothing the knuckles with his thumb. He looked pensive.

“What happened to Duro?”

“A tavern fight, of all fucking things. I told you, he was devoted to me. One night, I snuck  out to a tavern to meet… to meet someone I loved, and a fight broke out. I was naïve, then, and heartbroken, and I responded rashly. Before I knew it, the whole fucking place was involved. Duro had followed me there, and got a knife stuck in his ribs. For me. He was only fourteen. Stannis hated me for that. Robert hated me. Renly clung even tighter.”

And Agron had been celibate and alone for nearly two years. He had lost a _brother_ because some jumped-up hedge knight had been afraid of his companions finding out that he’d been bedding a Baratheon bastard. The very thought of it still brought him pain.

“Gods, I was a halfwit,” he sighed, ruffling his hair.

“All men in love are,” Nasir said absently. “It is known.”

Agron turned his head to look at him, and laughed. Nasir smiled.

“Agron, I… I am about to ask too much of you. But I want to say it anyway.” He took a deep breath, and released it in a slow, even sigh. “I ask your oath, that will live and die as blood of my blood, riding at my side to keep me safe from harm.”

The words hung anxiously in the air for a second as Agron began to comprehend their meaning. Nasir was asking him to be his bloodrider. Agron was struck by the honor of it, and the burden, too. Like Nasir said, it seemed almost too much—it was an eternal tie to the khalasar, to Nasir, that could not be severed. Stannis and Renly could be tortured and bloody and begging for his aid, and he couldn’t go to them. Nasir’s misfortune was his own, his death spelled his own.

But Agron had risked a lot more for love.

“Blood of my blood,” he said hoarsely.

Then, before he could stop himself, he leaned forward and kissed Nasir softly on the lips. For a few breathless seconds, they remained still, just barely touching. Agron pulled away and Nasir smiled.

“Everything important among the Dothraki is done beneath the open sky,” Nasir said, almost dreamily. His eyes darted up to the hole in the ceiling, and Agron understood. “When a khal marries, his wife is called the moon of his life, and he is her sun and stars.”

“You’re not going to marry,” Agron said sternly. Nasir laughed.

“No, I’m not.” He leaned forward and kissed Agron twice. “No, my sun and stars.”


End file.
